As I Remember
Alabama, Missouri, Arkansas and Michigan--send this letter
of peace and friendship, signed by my own hand.
I hope your health is good. China is a great empire,
extending over a great part of the world. The Chinese are
numerous. You have millions and millions of subjects. The
twenty-six United States are as large as China, though our
people are not so numerous. The rising sun looks upon the
great mountains and great rivers of China. When he sets he
looks upon mountains and rivers equally large in the United
States. Our territories extend from one great ocean to the
other; and on the west we are divided only from your domain
by the sea. Leaving the mouth of one of our great rivers and
going constantly towards the setting sun we sail to Japan
and the Yellow Sea.
Now, my words are that the governments of two such great
countries should be at peace. It is proper and according to
the will of heaven that they should respect each other and
act wisely. I therefore send to your Court Caleb Cushing one
of the wise and learned men of this country. On his first
arrival in China he will inquire for your health. He has
strict orders to go to your great city of Pekin and there
to deliver this letter. He will have with him secretaries
and interpreters.
The Chinese love to trade with our people and sell them tea
and silk for which our people pay silver and sometimes other
articles. But if the Chinese and Americans will trade there
should be rules so that they shall not break your laws or
our laws. Our minister, Caleb Cushing, is authorized to make
a treaty to regulate trade. Let it be just. Let there be no
unfair advantage on either side. Let the people trade not
only at Canton, but also at Amoy, Ningpo, Shanghai, Fushan
and all such other places as may offer profitable exchanges
both to China and the United States, provided they do not
break your laws or our laws. We shall not take the part of
the evil doers. We shall not uphold them that break your
laws. Therefore we doubt that you will be pleased that our
messenger of peace, with this letter in hand, shall come to
Pekin and there deliver it, and that your great officers
will, by your order, make a treaty with him to regulate the
affairs of trade, so that nothing may happen to disturb the
peace between China and America. Let the treaty be signed by
your own imperial hand. It shall be signed by mine, by the
authority of the great council, the Senate.
And so may your health be good and may peace reign.
Written at Washington this twelfth day of July, in the year
of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and forty-three.
Your good friend,
JOHN TYLER,
President.
Mr. Cushing accordingly negotiated our first treaty with China on the 3d
of July of the following year, and his ability at that time, as well as
thereafter, won for him, irrespective of party affiliations, an enviable
place in the history of American diplomacy. He was sent upon his mission
to Spain in 1874 by the party which he had opposed from its first
organization, and his diplomatic erudition was indispensable to the
State Department during the Grant administration.
Certain events in the career of Mr. Cushing serve to recall the days of
Mr. and Mrs. Franklin Pierce, whose lives were clouded by a grief that
saddened the whole of their subsequent career. A short time before
Pierce's inauguration, the President-elect with Mrs. Pierce and their
only son, a lad of immature years, were on their way to Andover in
Massachusetts, when the child was accidentally killed. Mrs. Pierce never
could be diverted from her all-absorbing sorrow, and I shall always
remember the grief-stricken expression of this first Lady of the Land.
Her maiden name was Jane Means Appleton, and she was the daughter of the
Rev. Dr. Jesse Appleton, President of Bowdoin College. During the Pierce
administration, Judge John Cadwalader, the father of the present John
Cadwalader of Philadelphia, was a member of Congress. The son was then a
mere lad, but he bore such a strong resemblance to the President's son
that one day when Mrs. Pierce met him she was completely overcome. After
this boy had become a man and had attained exceptional eminence at the
bar, he feelingly alluded to this touching incident of his earlier days.
I was very intimately acquainted with Elizabeth and Fanny MacNeil,
President Pierce's nieces, who were occasional visitors at the White
House. They were daughters of General John MacNeil, U.S.A., who had
acquitted himself with distinction in the War of 1812. Elizabeth
married, as before stated, General Henry W. Benham of the Engineer Corps
of the Army, and Fanny became the wife of Colonel Chandler E. Potter,
U.S.A. Dr. Thomas Miller was our family physician for many years. He
came to Washington from Loudoun County, Virginia, and married Miss
Virginia Collins Jones, daughter of Walter Jones, an eminent lawyer.
During the Pierce administration he was physician to the President's
family.
CHAPTER XI
MARRIAGE AND CONTINUED LIFE IN WASHINGTON
I met my future father-in-law, Samuel L. Gouverneur, Sr., for the first
time in Cold Spring, New York. Mr. Gouverneur, accompanied by his second
wife, then a bride, who was Miss Mary Digges Lee, of Needwood, Frederick
County, Maryland, and a granddaughter of Thomas Sim Lee, second Governor
of the same state, was the guest of Gouverneur Kemble. When I first knew
Mr. Gouverneur he possessed every gift that fortune as well as nature
can bestow. To quote the words of Eliab Kingman, a lifelong friend of
his and who for many years was the Nestor of the Washington press, "he
even possessed a seductive voice." General Scott, prior to my marriage
into the family, remarked to me that there "was something in Mr.
Gouverneur lacking of greatness."
The history of my husband's family is so well known that it seems almost
superfluous to dwell upon it, but, as these reminiscences are purely
personal, I may at least incidentally refer to it. Samuel L. Gouverneur,
Sr., was the youngest child of Nicholas Gouverneur and his wife, Hester
Kortright, a daughter of Lawrence Kortright, a prominent merchant of New
York and at one time president of its Chamber of Commerce. He was
graduated from Columbia College in New York in the class of 1817, and
married his first cousin, Maria Hester Monroe, the younger daughter of
James Monroe. This wedding took place in the East Room of the White
House. My husband, Samuel L. Gouverneur, Jr., was the youngest child of
this alliance. _The National Intelligencer_ of March 11, 1820, contained
the following brief marriage notice:
_Married_
On Thursday evening last [March 9th], in this City, by the
Reverend Mr. [William] Hawley, Samuel Laurence Gouverneur,
Esq., of New York, to Miss Maria Hester Monroe, youngest
daughter of James Monroe, President of the United States.
For a number of years Samuel L. Gouverneur, Sr., was private secretary
to his father-in-law, President Monroe. In 1825 he was a member of the
New York Legislature, and from 1828 to 1836 Postmaster of the City of
New York. For many years, like the gentlemen of his day and class, he
was much interested in racehorses and at one time owned the famous
horse, _Post Boy_. He was also deeply interested in the drama and it was
partially through his efforts that many brilliant stars were brought to
this country to perform at the Bowery Theater in New York, of which he
was a partial owner. Among its other owners were Prosper M. Wetmore, the
well-known author and regent of the University of the State of New York,
and General James A. Hamilton, son of Alexander Hamilton and acting
Secretary of State in 1829, under Jackson. Mr. Gouverneur was a man of
decidedly social tastes and at one period of his life owned and occupied
the De Menou buildings on H Street in Washington, where, during the life
of his first wife, he gave some brilliant entertainments. It was from
this house that his son, and my future husband, went to the Mexican War.
Many years subsequent to my marriage I heard Rear Admiral John J. Almy,
U.S.N., describe some of the entertainments given by the Gouverneur
family, and he usually wound up his reminiscences by informing me that
sixteen baskets of champagne were frequently consumed by the guests
during a single evening. My old friend, Emily Mason, loved to refer to
these parties and told me that she made her _debut_ at one of them. The
house was well adapted for entertainments, as there were four spacious
drawing-rooms, two on each side of a long hall, one side being reserved
for dancing.
At the time of the Gouverneur-Monroe wedding the bride was but sixteen
years of age, and many years younger than her only sister, Eliza, who
was the wife of Judge George Hay of Virginia, the United States
District-Attorney of that State, and the prosecuting officer at the
trial of Aaron Burr. Mrs. Hay was educated in Paris at Madame Campan's
celebrated school, where she was the associate and friend of Hortense de
Beauharnais, subsequently the Queen of Holland and the mother of
Napoleon III. The Rev. Dr. William Hawley, who performed the marriage
ceremony of Miss Monroe and Mr. Gouverneur, was the rector of old St.
John's Church in Washington. He was a gentleman of the old school and
always wore knee breeches and shoe buckles. In the War of 1812 he
commanded a company of divinity students in New York, enlisted for the
protection of the city. It is said that when ordered to the frontier he
refused to go and resigned his commission, and I have heard that
Commodore Stephen Decatur refused to attend St. John's Church during his
rectorship, because he said he did not care to listen to a man who
refused to obey orders.
Only the relatives and personal friends attended the Gouverneur-Monroe
wedding at the White House; even the members of the Cabinet were not
invited. The gallant General Thomas S. Jesup, one of the heroes of the
War of 1812 and Subsistance Commissary General of the Army, acted as
groomsman to Mr. Gouverneur. Two of his daughters, Mrs. James Blair and
Mrs. Augustus S. Nicholson, still reside at the National Capital and are
prominent "old Washingtonians." After this quiet wedding, Mr. and Mrs.
Gouverneur left Washington upon a bridal tour and about a week later
returned to the White House, where, at a reception, Mrs. Monroe gave up
her place as hostess to mingle with her guests, while Mrs. Gouverneur
received in her place. Commodore and Mrs. Stephen Decatur, who lived on
Lafayette Square, gave the bride her first ball, and two mornings later,
on the twenty-second of March, 1820, Decatur fought his fatal duel with
Commodore James Barron and was brought home a corpse. "The bridal
festivities," wrote Mrs. William Winston Seaton, wife of the editor of
_The National Intelligencer_, "have received a check which will prevent
any further attentions to the President's family, in the murder of
Decatur." The invitations already sent out for an entertainment in honor
of the bride and groom by Commodore David Porter, father of the late
Admiral David D. Porter, U.S.N., were immediately countermanded.
I never had the pleasure of knowing my mother-in-law, Mrs. Maria Hester
Monroe Gouverneur, as she died some years before my marriage, but I
learned to revere her through her son, whose tender regard for her was
one of the absorbing affections of his life and changed the whole